jerseyshorejohnny
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http://thetablet.org/?p=13649
George Johnson : St. John's Basketball Star
- Thread starter jerseyshorejohnny
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George Johnson probably favorite Redmen of all time. Could score, shoot, rebound, pass and handle. Remember he had a string of really high scoring games in NBA for a while-surprised he did not have a better NBA career because he was a very talented ballplayer.
George (one of my all-time favorites as well, and another should-be-a-Legacy player) got off to a bad start with the Bucks in his rookie year. Don't remember the reason behind it, but I do remember Don Nelson, the Bucks coach at the time, saying he had never before seen a rookie report to camp in such terrible shape.
I'm surprised at Johnson's NBA stats. I thought they were better and I thought he had a longer career. Oh well, I guess age will do that to your memory. However, there is no denying his stats at St. John's; all time leading rebounder and only he and the great Lloyd "Sonny" Dove scored over 1,000 points and had over 1000 rebounds.
Always liked George and I remember reading in the NY Times when he declared for St John's. That was big back then. Sadly those comments by Nelson are reminiscent of the comments by Pat Riley about Willie Glass lacking in fundamentals, and being one of the worst he had seen. Both assertions kind of reflect badly on St. John's.
beast of the east
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Willie Glass was sort of one-dimensional but boy could he jump.
It's possible that George Johnson could have reported out of shape. If you see him now, he has packed on the lbs, BUT, it's very hard to imagine a better forward at SJU than Johnson. If he played the 4 during our final four year, with Berry at the 3, we could have easily toppled G'Town. He was tough as nails, could handle the ball. soft shooting touch, could bring it to the hole, and rebound and defend. And, he had that scowl.
I'll never forget the number he did on Kent benson and the undefeated Hoosiers in the Holiday Festival. Within the first ten minutes he whipped Benson and had him in foul trouble.
It's possible that George Johnson could have reported out of shape. If you see him now, he has packed on the lbs, BUT, it's very hard to imagine a better forward at SJU than Johnson. If he played the 4 during our final four year, with Berry at the 3, we could have easily toppled G'Town. He was tough as nails, could handle the ball. soft shooting touch, could bring it to the hole, and rebound and defend. And, he had that scowl.
I'll never forget the number he did on Kent benson and the undefeated Hoosiers in the Holiday Festival. Within the first ten minutes he whipped Benson and had him in foul trouble.
I'm the one who mentioned Don Nelson's comment on George's conditioning as a rookie, but as I noted in that post (and many other times as well), George Johnson is without question one of my all-time favorites and probably the freshman with the greatest impact we've ever had. Was at that incredibly exciting Indiana game and I remember my friends and I jumping to our feet and yelling "George!" at the top of our lungs each time he scored or rebounded to keep the game close against that for-the-ages UI team (Benson, Wilkerson, Abernathy, Buckner, and the great POY Scott May -- all future NBAers). They were a perfectly fined-tuned machine ... and George, almost single-handedly, came close to chalking up their only defeat of the season. One of the greatest efforts by a Redmen ever.
George went for 23 and 12 against bigger Kent Benson. Garden was a sell out and I recall that word was that the Garden had to turn another 10,000 away. Great game, great atmosphere. Remember late in close game john Farmer was ahead of field for a layup but there was a call behind the play giving the ball back to indy and we could not overcome.
McGuire and Marquette opted for the NIT in 1970 not 76 because of being put in the Midwest regional rather than the Mideast. They went on to win the NIT over St. John's that year.
As for the Johnnie's after the tremendous Holiday Festival game against the Hoosiers they had a rematch against them in the tournament and after being close in the early second half Indiana won going away by 20 points.
Glen Williams and Alagia had big games to no avail. A great Marquette team met Indiana later in the tournament and lost a close game when McGuire was hit with his second technical with under a minute to go. Indiana scored all the points at the end 8 straight off the technical fouls and possessions as time expired.
beast of the east
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I was at that game as well. It was our greatest moment in a loss I believe. I may be mistaken, but in addition to a layup being waved off, Farmer missed a real chippy, an open 6 or 8 foot jump shot that would have tied or put us ahead. It doesn't really matter though - Indiana was an incredible team, and likely woul dhave found a way to win. When the outcome was no longer in doubt, in the waning seconds, the Garden crowd rose in unison to loudly hail our Redmen, who had given one of the greatest teams of all time EVERYTHING they could handle for 40 minutes. It was one of the shining moments for our program, even in defeat, when a team of NYC guys coached by a local guy who had a recruiting budget of "a roll of subway tokens", came within an eyelash of knocking off a team stocked full of future NBA players. It was that game, and that moment, that cemented my lifelong passion for our program.
Yea, George Johnson was THAT good, and turned out to be a better pro than Benson, Buckner, May, or Abernathy.